"In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned US military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'

"Were he alive to witness the last three decades of US foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: 'Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable...

"For decades beginning during the Cold War, US policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements.

"Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left.

"In these dictatorships, often the only places where people had freedom to meet and organize were mosques - and out of these mosques sometimes grew extreme Islamist movements.

"The Shah's torture state in Iran was brilliant at cleansing and murdering the left - a process that helped the rise of the Khomeini movement and ultimately Iran's Islamic Republic.

In a pattern growing out of what King called Washington's 'irrational, obsessive anti-communism,' US foreign policy also backed extreme Islamists over secular movements or government that were either Soviet-allied or feared to be."

Anyway, why blame Washington? Just because "Made in U.S.A" happens to be writ all over the equipment, weapons, and tear gas in the arsenal of every security apparatus in the Middle East barring Iran and Lebanon? And what do you suggest? Allowing these repressive regimes to fall in Iran-like fashion?

Listen buddy, you and Obama-lama are making a huge mistake. You just don't know your history. The only way to prevent radicalizing a population or turning them against you is to brutally support the suppression of any democratic initiative. Why do you think Soviet Russia spent so much time and energy brutalizing the population of Eastern Europe and Central Asia? Thanks to their support of dictatorial and illegitimate regimes that put Russia's interest and security ahead of their populations, Russia is still today seen as a shining beacon of hope from East Germany to Uzbekistan, and the Soviet Union has never been safer.

Is that a venerated Wall Street apologist/war criminal or a holy South American camelid known for spitting and kicking?

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I dunno what you're talking about, George. I was just kidding. I was parodying the position of some board members, which I refer to as the United States Authoritarian Regime Fan Club or USAR F.C. for short, who adhere to the Mike Tyson Theory of foreign policy.

"In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned US military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'

"Were he alive to witness the last three decades of US foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: 'Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable...

"For decades beginning during the Cold War, US policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements.

"Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left.

"In these dictatorships, often the only places where people had freedom to meet and organize were mosques - and out of these mosques sometimes grew extreme Islamist movements.

"The Shah's torture state in Iran was brilliant at cleansing and murdering the left - a process that helped the rise of the Khomeini movement and ultimately Iran's Islamic Republic.

In a pattern growing out of what King called Washington's 'irrational, obsessive anti-communism,' US foreign policy also backed extreme Islamists over secular movements or government that were either Soviet-allied or feared to be."

Is that a venerated Wall Street apologist/war criminal or a holy South American camelid known for spitting and kicking?

Click to expand...

I dunno what you're talking about, George. I was just kidding. I was parodying the position of some board members, which I refer to as the United States Authoritarian Regime Fan Club or USAR F.C. for short, who adhere to the Mike Tyson Theory of foreign policy.

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Is it too late to trade Tyson for Obama? (Hillary??)

Maybe we could toss in a Dali Llama or two?

I've also noticed how some of our fellow board members resist applying the same moral standards to their country they insist on for others.

Perhaps what's happening now in the Middle East will open a few USAR F.C. eyes, as well.
Noam Chomsky is calling the Egyptian Uprising the most remarkable event of its kind he has ever seen.

I fear Arab extremism because of the Arabs that did, and those that attempted, to blow up thousands of innocent Americans on our own soil.

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The mass murder committed on 911 didn't occur in a historical vacuum; although, anyone would be hard pressed to learn that from our corporate media:

"In Afghanistan, beginning BEFORE the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the US armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters - some of whom went on to form the Taliban.

"To aid the mujahedeen, the US recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world - some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda.

"(Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence - in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians - covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)

"This is hardly obscure history.

"Except in US mainstream media.

"One of the mantras on US television news all day Friday was: Be fearful of the democratic uprisings against US allies in Egypt (and Tunisia and elsewhere).

"After all, we were told by Fox News and CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, it could end up as bad as when 'our ally' in Iran was overthrown and the extremists came to power in 1979."

If you're interested in how Islamic radicals took power in Iran, you have to start with an elected secular Iranian Prime Minister named: "Mohammad Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq (Persian: &#1605;&#1581;&#1605;&#1583; &#1605;&#1589;&#1583;&#1617;&#1602;, IPA: [mohæm&#712;mæd(-e) mosæd&#712;de&#611;] ( listen)*), also Mossadegh, Mossadeq, Mosadeck, or Musaddiq (19 May 1882 &#8211; 5 March 1967), was the democratically elected[1][2][3] Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was overthrown in a coup d'état backed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

For thousands of years the richest among us have used all governments to socialize cost and privatize profit. Egyptians and others across the Middle East are rising against that in a way similar to the Eastern European/Central Asian uprising against Communism two decades ago.

How many of us in this country will even view this global fight in terms or rich v poor?

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) &#8211; A Portuguese model accused of killing a celebrity TV journalist in a hotel admitted to brutally attacking him for more than an hour &#8212; castrating him with a corkscrew, stabbing him in the face, slamming a computer monitor into his head and stomping on his face, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Renato Seabra, 21, remained silent at his arraignment in Manhattan State Supreme Court. His lawyer entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Court papers presented by prosecutors detailed the statement that police said Seabra gave to investigators after the Jan. 7 death of well-known Portuguese journalist Carlos Castro while the two were vacationing in Manhattan.
The account depicted an argument in a hotel room that turned vicious and escalated into a prolonged frenzy &#8212; with Seabra first choking his companion, then stabbing him with a corkscrew in his face and groin. Seabra also admitted to hitting the 65-year-old Castro on the head with a computer monitor and stomping on his face while wearing shoes, the papers said.
After the attack, Seabra told police, he showered, put on a suit and left. When he ran into a friend of Castro&#8217;s as well as her daughter, he at first refused to answer questions about Castro&#8217;s whereabouts but then said he was in the hotel room and gave them the room number: 3416. He then left the InterContinental New York Times Square hotel, wandered around the city and eventually got into a taxi that took him to St. Luke&#8217;s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, the papers said.
The city medical examiner has ruled Castro died of head injuries and strangulation.

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